The easee CO2 calculator

At easee, we are committed to make everyday count and build a better future. A future with accessible eyecare for everyone. Making eyecare more accessible is good news for all who are interested in preventing poorsightedness. But there is more. Delivering eye care remotely saves you a trip to the store or to the clinic! Please read below how we at easee work on reducing your carbon footprint with technology (spoiler alert: lot’s of numbers…) and how you can calculate the impact of a digital transition in your business or clinic.

Healthcare is big and accounts for an estimated 4‐10% of total global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Reducing the climate impact in healthcare contributes to achieving the global sustainability goal of carbon emission reduction. Note that many people in society need eyecare: think of glasses, contacts, cataract surgery, occupational health screenings, etc. Travel‐related emissions contribute roughly 20% to the total healthcare-related emissions. These emissions increase yearly also due to increased health care consumption in general.

As mentioned above, telemedicine is an interesting avenue to substantially reduce carbon emissions in healthcare. The COVID‐19 pandemic was a huge accelerator for the expansion of remote digital care. Avoiding a substantial part of patient travel was shown to be possible and good practice examples emerged.

Better accessibility to care through telemedicine increases patient autonomy, provides an alternative to costly patient travel, and is thought to decrease our global carbon footprint. How significant this carbon reduction is for climate change is unclear, and therefore our research team pursued a systematic review of the existing sources and peer-reviewed literature. This led to a comprehensive method to evaluate the environmental impact of telemedicine compared to usual care. And to aid the general public, we conceptualized the Digital Transition Carbon Calculator (DTCC) We consider this tooling essential to raise awareness of its role in reducing overall emissions. The science behind the calculator can be found in this preprint publication.

Reach out to our Head of Sales, Luc van der Blij ([email protected]) to receive an accessible copy of the easee Digital Transition Carbon Calculator (DTCC)!

Click the button below to get a sample of the Calculator.